By Judith Phillips, Reporter

THIS is a sad day for me as a Weekly News old stager with the news of the death of Tommy Eyton Jones, who was "Mr North Wales Weekly News" to many of our readers for more than 50 years.

Tommy, who started on the paper straight from Conwy Central School as a mere slip of a lad, worked his way up through the company to become the much respected sports editor and deputy editor.

When I joined the paper in 1961 he was already a well established institution and a kindly and highly professional mentor to a nervous teenager taking a first step on the journalistic ladder.

In those days the Weekly News offices were in Castle Street in Conwy with the printing works on the Quay, and every Wednesday Tommy and the then editor Idwal Owen would decamp to the printing works where they shared a tiny cubby hole of an office for the last few hours of the job of "putting the paper to bed".

As the newest recruit it was my job, at around 5pm, to walk along the Quay to one of the fishermen's cottages where a kindly elderly lady prepared afternoon tea for Mr Eyton Jones and Mr Owen (I wouldn't have presumed to call them by their Christian names in those days, when a strict hierarchic etiquette was observed).

Clutched in my hot palm would be two silver sixpences passed to me to pay for the feast which was laid out on two trays, each covered by a pristine white lace edged cloth. For this princely sum each had a pot of tea accompanied by a jug of milk and a sugar bowl, a china cup to pour it into, a round of dainty sandwiches, a slice of homemade bara brith and another of luscious sponge cake. I would carefully balance each of the trays and take them one by one back to the printing works where my bosses would tuck in with relish.

But one day when I went for the trays Mrs Williams had bad news: "I'm sorry but I've got to put the charge up to ninepence. You see, tea has gone up, and so has sugar and milk, and I'm not making anything out of it," she said.

With fear and trepidation I returned to the print room to break the dreadful news.
"Ninepence!?" exclaimed Tommy. "Does she think I'm made of money?"

But he paid up with a smile and a chuckle. And that's how I'll remember him, as a kindly, avuncular figure, who was also a first rate journalist and a good friend.

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